302 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS.. 



ment plays and courtship, and least so in building, 

 curiosity, and imitative play. What makes this differ- 

 ence? Probably the fact that in many plays there 

 is not only sham activity, but also a sham object as 

 well, which, we assume, the intelligent animal recog- 

 nises as such, while in other cases this is wanting. If 

 we could be certain that apes treat lifeless objects as 

 dolls, this act would be in the foremost rank of illusion 

 plays; if other animals would choose a fixed object as 

 the goal of their races, this too would be most impor- 

 tant. But we can not be sure of these things, for 

 speech is wanting to these creatures. The child that 

 puts on his father's hat and says, " Now I am papa," 

 proves that his is not mere instinctive imitation, and 

 that he is conscious of the make-believe, while the mon- 

 key that imitates his master has no way of assuring 

 us of the character of his actions. Still less can we 

 ascertain whether the play of masses of animals, which 

 we regard as imitative, is characterized by that absorp- 

 tion of the individual by the mass that is so essential to 

 such play among men. 



Be that as it may, there is the strongest probability 

 that the playing animal has this conscious self-decep- 

 tion. The origin of artistic fantasy or playful illusion 

 is thus anchored in the firm ground of organic evolu- 

 tion. Play is needed for the higher development of 

 intelligence; at first merely objective, it becomes, by 

 means of this development, subjective as well, for the 

 fact that the animal, though recognising that his action 

 is only a pretence, repeats it, raises it to the sphere of 

 conscious self-illusion, pleasure in making believe — 

 that is, to the threshold of artistic production. Only to 

 the threshold, however, for to such production belongs 

 the aim of affecting others by the pretence, and pure 



